


Erik's Moving Castle

by sunryder



Series: Erik's Moving Castle [1]
Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Charles Is a Darling, Emotionally Crippled Erik Is Fun To Read, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier had accepted that he was doomed to be ordinary while Raven and Hank got to be extraordinary. Of course, that was all true right up until Charles flirted with the handsomest fellow he'd ever seen and got cursed into a crippled old man for his trouble. Now Charles is hiding out in a moving castle with a fire demon named Logan who has a cigar problem, a magical apprentice and accidental firestarter named Alex, and the same handsome man who got Charles into this mess in the first place. A man who just happens to be the great and terrible Wizard Erik.</p><p>Done for the <a href="menbigbang.livejournal.com">xmenbigbang</a> over on livejournal, with art by the fabulous<br/><a href="http://amoralambiguity.livejournal.com">Amoralambiguity</a>. The masterful artwork is <a href="http://%20http://amoralambiguity.livejournal.com/164596.html">HERE</a>, and must be fussed over!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erik's Moving Castle

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the [xmenbigbang](menbigbang.livejournal.com) over on livejournal, and can I just say, once again the mods were excellent.  
> [Amoralambiguity](http://amoralambiguity.livejournal.com) was my artist, and she is my hero. Not only did she create masterful artwork that you have to go and see [HERE](http://amoralambiguity.livejournal.com/164596.html), she was a sport about all the times I ripped apart this story and began it all over again. Go and make a fuss over her work!

There had been a time in his existence when Charles Xavier stayed up late because he couldn't stand to put aside his research. He would sit at one end of the stout kitchen table with his father at the other, and together they would spread out enough books to overwhelm the surface, spilling manuscripts over the side into mountains of their own. Angel would just smile and make them both tea, poured into enchanted mugs that would keep the brew warm no matter how long they both forgot to drink. Then she would drop a gentle kiss to each of their temples and leave her husband and stepson to bask in their experiments. Those were good nights, with Charles taking in the steady silence of his father, secure in the knowledge that within a few minutes Hank would creep out of bed to join them at their books and, loathe to be left out, Raven would sneak down as well, despite the fact she would fall asleep out of sheer boredom within the next twenty minutes.

 

These were beautiful nights, and a beautiful life… up until the moment Brian Xavier laid his head down on that kitchen table and didn't get up the next morning.

 

Now Charles was up late going over the bills rather than his books. (Still in his chair at the other end of the table. Not his father's spot. Never his father's.)

 

Brian Xavier had always been a talented apothecary, the undisputed best in their town of Westchester. But for all man’s skills with the inherent passive magic that came with potion making, he never had been particularly productive. Now his death had left his family in a terrible position. Without Brian, all manner of creditors were finding their way out of the woodwork to demand their sums out of Charles. Since it had been Charles’s intention to never leave his father's apothecary shop, quietly plodding away at potions for the rest of his days, he wasn’t too perturbed that this is what was expected of him. But the thought of his vibrant siblings condemned to the same made him ill. Raven and Hank each had their own vision for the future, and Charles was awake in the dead of night trying to make those come true.

 

Charles's stepmother, Angel, had done the best she could by her two younger children, finding them apprenticeships that she thought they would enjoy, and weren't too terribly far away from home. But like her husband before her, Angel had the best of intentions and the worst of outcomes.

 

Raven had been secured a place at the front counter of Westchester's most reputable bakery, _Cerebro._ Angel's thinking was that since her own position as a shop girl at the apothecary had led straight to her marriage with Brian Xavier, it was exactly the sort of thing that Raven would want as well. It was a wonderful idea, were it not for the fact that Raven resented people who paid attention to her svelte curves and curly blonde hair rather than her mind, and the men at the front counter of the bakery were not likely to ignore Raven's more prominent… attributes. (Really, it was an easy mistake for Angel to make, considering that when a man _didn’t_ pay a sufficient amount of attention to those attributes then Raven was likely to make him cry.)

 

Like Raven, Hank had been acquired an apprenticeship that supposedly fit him perfectly. Angel had sent him to Oxford, the next town over, and to the Wizard Armando. Her thinking was that Hank's fondness for helping Brian with his experiments meant that, like their father, Hank harbored a secret longing to become a wizard. Once again, Angel had done the best with the information in front of her and come out wrong. The trouble was that Hank helped with the experiments because he loved the process, not the magic (and doing it for him was the only way to get Brian to keep proper records). At heart Hank was a scientist, and he preferred when his experiments followed the predicable rules of order and logic, something that could never be guaranteed with magical reactions.

 

With both of his siblings so unhappy, Charles had barely slept in the last week, diligently going over the finances to find a way to cut back even further so that perhaps his siblings could at least switch apprenticeships. Armando, of course, would be willing to take in the whole family if they wanted, wonderful friend of their father that he was. But the baker at _Cerebro_ was more than irritated by the whole mess and would only exchange one Xavier sibling for another if Charles managed to find more money than they would ever have on hand. And so Charles worked, and he pushed himself, and he spent far longer hours at the apothecary shop than he should, trying to make more potions than they ever had before so he might save his siblings.

 

He went over the accounts every few days in the hope that perhaps some new source of income would magically appear, which is precisely what he was doing on this particular night. He’d been up since before dawn churning out batch after batch of anti-nausea potions (and Charles felt guilty about being so grateful that the flu was going around). The exhaustion of the long day settled into his bones beside the unending struggle of trying to find a way out, and between one breath and the next, dropped his head to the table and fell asleep.

 

In the months since his father’s death Charles had grown accustomed to being plagued by nightmares about losing their home, being stripped of the shop, having no money to give his younger siblings a chance in the world (even if they weren't particularly pleased with the apprenticeships they had been given), and seeing Angel's bright smiling eyes turn leaden because he couldn't fend for his family in the way that his father had.

 

But on this night, Charles slept soundly. Despite being lost deep in his dreams he thought he could feel strong fingers combing through his hair and a soft voice whispering strange words of comfort in his ear. Charles woke the next morning to the warm light of sunrise and he couldn’t help but smile. He was refreshed, filled with hope, and for a few long moments he believed that perhaps everything would turn out fine. The financial documents still scattered on the table dampened his mood somewhat, but it couldn't undermine his newfound good mood.

 

Apparently a positive attitude was all Charles needed, because as the day went on every last potion turned out well, each quite a bit more potent than he'd expected, and customers who Charles hadn't seen in years suddenly felt the need to return to Xavier's Apothecary rather than the more prominent shops at the town's center. Within a few days Raven dropped by for a moment, proclaiming that she'd been moved to the back of the store as a junior baker rather than salesgirl and she was loving every moment. Then there was a letter from Hank rambling about all the new things he'd learned with Armando. With one night of good sleep it seemed that suddenly everything had turned around.

 

Things at the shop quickly grew frantic, an endless stream of people coming in for potions to bless their gardens, lotions to increase their beauty before the May Day celebrations, and cures for summer colds. Charles knew that their shop had always been the best of the Westchester apothecaries, and he assumed that this sudden boom in business was due to the same high quality products as always, only now coupled with Charles's sense of reliability that Brian had lacked.

 

Of course, it didn't hurt things that people seemed so genuinely fond of Charles. The little old women who came in once a week for their joint tonic liked to sit down with him to tea, and they all swore that no potion made them feel better than a few minutes conversation with young Master Xavier. (Charles would just blush at the assertion and stumble into the back of the shop to have a sturdy wall between him and the giggling women.)

 

The shop began to do so well that Charles sent Hank a tentatively worded letter to ask if perhaps, Hank wanted to come home. It wouldn't be the same as being a wizard, but he wouldn't be homesick anymore, nor would he have to endure the fickleness of magic. Hank's letter took longer to return then Charles had anticipated, and when it finally came, the note simply told Charles to go and see Raven at the bakery on May Day. Confused at his instructions (particularly considering that Hank hadn't even answered his question), Charles waited the few days until May Day, closing the shop with a note on the door that declared he was taking a particularly long lunch and would be back later in the afternoon.

 

The day was bright and pleasant, with a festive air that colored the whole town. Streamers of leafy green and sunshine yellow framed shop windows while thick garlands hung from the street lamps, and the young people of Westchester all but danced down the streets with flowers in their hair.

 

Charles, of course, was unadorned.

 

He ducked through the side alleys to avoid the river of joyous people, wanting to make his way quickly to the bakery without the burden of exchanging pleasantries. (Apparently the trouble with being a successful businessman was that people wanted to _speak_ with you.) For the most part his walk across town was uneventful, catching only glimpses of the festival that had consumed the rest of the city, and hearing echoes of the music calling them all to dance. It was, he admitted to himself, a tad bit lonely to make the trek alone, knowing that when they were done he would leave his sister in a circle of adoring acquaintances while he made his way back to his quiet little shop, only to work late until he didn't ache quite so much at being left behind.

 

Charles was so thoroughly engrossed in his melancholy that he didn't notice the man standing in his path. Instead, Charles walked headlong into a broad chest that felt roughly akin to smacking into a brick wall. He tilted back his head to apologize and scamper on his way before the situation got anymore awkward. However, the man standing in front of him was… stunning, and seemed to have stripped Charles of his ability to form a cogent sentence.

 

The man was all sharp, unyielding angles, and the long lines of his black tailcoat accentuated the broad planes of his chest. Charles failed to bite back a gulp at his almost visceral reaction to the man's handsomeness, but judging by his smirk, Charles's response did not go unnoticed. For all his beauty though, the man’s eyes were strange. They glinted with a steel blue, but they seemed hollow somehow, like there was wall up between the man’s soul and the rest of the outside world. His grin slowly turned fierce, and as if the situation wasn't mortifying enough the man had now caught Charles staring. He blushed scarlet before he muttered out an apology and tried to scamper down a side alley where he could be alone to combust in mortification in peace.

 

Charles successfully made it two steps away before the man in question snatched Charles by the arm and twisted him around, tugging Charles tight to his chest. Charles stood there for a moment, absolutely frozen and unable to breathe before the man smiled at him again, less teasing this time and far more pleased. "Where are you off to?"

 

This was exactly the sort of situation that Charles had warned Raven about, being trapped in an alleyway with a strange man, but Charles couldn't find it in himself to be nervous, simply flustered at the man's unyielding attention. "Uh, I'm going to _Cerebro’s_."

 

The man took a shuffle of a half step, slipping even further into Charles's space and asked, "Why?"

 

The question was ridiculous enough that Charles was able to regain a fragment of himself and reply, "I should think that was fairly obvious. It is a _bakery_ after all."

 

If Charles had expected the man to draw back, upset with Charles's mouthiness, he was disappointed. Instead the man grinned even more, like Charles was providing him with some good sport. He trailed the hand he had on Charles's upper arm down the front of the muscle to somehow find the way to Charles's waist. Charles’s breath caught at the motion, and he became painfully aware that the only touches he’d received since his siblings were sent away had been brushes of fingers as he handed over products and the occasional pat to his cheek when a client told him ‘you’re such a good boy, Master Xavier’. The touch of this man’s fingers to the thin fabric over Charles’s side was positively obscene in comparison. "And yet,” the man teased, “you don't strike me as the sort of fellow who'd put off purchasing his May Day pastries until halfway through the festival."

 

"What makes you so certain of that?" Charles retorted, despite the fact that it really was quite an accurate assessment of him.

 

The handsome man ran his free hand through Charles's combed back hair, mussing it, with his hand now slipping from Charles's waist to rest at the small of his back so Charles couldn't properly pull away. (Not that Charles was trying too desperately hard to get away from the man. Despite the motion of the man's hands, all his attention seemed to be on Charles's face, and Charles couldn't quite bring himself to break that.) "I'm sure because there are no flowers in your hair. You don't even have one pinned to your lapel like the old men do when they think they're too dignified for blossoms."

 

"I've been in my shop all day," Charles challenged.

 

The man tugged him a little tighter; hand pressed low to Charles's back and slowly began to sway to the rhythm of the music playing in the public square at the far end of the alley. "And yet you came out into this chaos, to go to the most popular bakery in the city, while everyone who isn't quite so orderly as you is buying pastries."

 

"I was going to see my sister. She works there." Charles blushed.

 

"Ah, your sister." The handsome man took Charles's free hand in his own and shifted into a waltz. Charles automatically rested his unheld hand on the man's shoulder, easily keeping time while the man led them both through the small space of the alley and towards the large square filled with revelers.

 

Charles stumbled in the man's grip, not wanting to go out in the humming chaos of all those people when he could avoid it. The handsome man grinned again, like Charles was something to be teased and cajoled into coming along. The man tugged Charles tighter to his chest and pulled him back on rhythm, and out into the square.

 

Together they waltzed across the space, twisting in between other spinning couples while they made their way through the music and towards the bakery on the far side. The moment was ethereal. Flower petals drifted on the breeze, the air was thick with the scent of spices, and for the first time in his life, Charles was wanted. Raven was the beautiful one while Hank was the clever one, and for his whole life Charles had simply been _there_. He was reliable, and dependable, and 'oh, such a sweet boy'. But just this once someone had deemed him worth paying attention to. This man was beautiful, with his sharp features and crystalline eyes, and of all people it was plain, steady Charles that he was dancing with. Charles felt like all that good fortune that had so blessed the shop had finally settled on him as well.

 

With the last few notes of the song the man spun Charles out of his grip and dropped into a deep bow, with his teasing smirk entirely intact. When the man didn't pull Charles back into his embrace, Charles realized that they'd crossed the wide expanse of the town square and brought Charles safely to bakery's front door. Charles was man enough to admit to himself that he didn't want to go in. For the first time in his life he felt like he could engage in the dancing and revels that so consumed the others on May Day, like he could be happy spending the day being ridiculous with this man.

 

But Charles Francis Xavier was nothing if not reliable, and so instead he gave the man his most besotted smile and turned to slip into the bakery. But once again, the man stretched out his hand and took Charles by the upper arm, slowly twisting him back around. Charles looked up at him, almost tempted to believe that this was going to be one of those fairy tale moments that Angel so liked to talk about. That the man might lean down to kiss him and suddenly everything about Charles's life would change.

 

Of course, that's not the way Charles's story was meant to go. So instead, the man plucked a simple red daisy off the bouquet on the hat of an old woman passing by and tucked it over Charles's ear. The man brushed his fingers over the petals with a grin, and then winked at Charles before he disappeared back into the crowd. Charles just stood there for a moment, utterly baffled by the whole chain of events that had led to this moment, wanting to chase after that man and see what would happen. Instead he straightened his spine, steeled himself for the chaos of people, and turned to walk into the bakery. **[FN: red daisy means that the person being given the flower has beauty that they know not of.]**

 

Compared to the quiet solidity of the man's presence, the anarchy inside the shop almost gave Charles a headache. But he had a flower in his hair from the handsomest man he'd ever seen, and that was enough to guide him safely through the thumping throng of people demanding their baked goods and to the door that led to the back of the massive bakery. Charles slipped past the various work tables and mixing counters, finding his way to a nook at the very back of the shop where Raven spent her days devising new recipes.

 

Charles immediately slipped off his jacket because Raven's little corner of the kitchen was quiet and homey, warm like summer thanks to constantly working ovens. He let his sister hum to herself over the intricacies of a spice mixture for a new variety of apple pie while he waited for her to look up and pay him attention.

 

Though, now that he thought about it, there was something wrong with that image.

 

Raven was never one for diligent testing methods, and based on the pages and pages of meticulous notes that were scattered around her station, Raven was applying the scientific method to the development of these recipes. Behavior that was not at all like Raven, but entirely like Hank.

 

For just one moment that thought was enough to change the image of the sibling before him. Suddenly Raven's blonde curls melted away into the scruff of Hank's always mangled short brown hair. Her perfect profile became Hank's sweet face, complete with slightly too large glasses. The image quickly flickered away, back to precisely what Charles would've expected Raven to look like in this situation, but now he knew the truth.

 

Charles sunk back on the stool that was kept in the nook for all those left to wait for 'Raven' to pay attention and sighed, "Oh Hank, what have you done?"

 

Hank looked up from his notebook with a jump, obviously surprised that Charles had seen through whatever magic the boy had concealing his identity, but Charles could see the relief in his brother's eyes that he wouldn't have to find a way to break the ice. He gingerly set aside his notebook and stumbled out, "Well, Raven and were both… less than thrilled with our apprenticeships."

 

Charles fixed him with a stern look. "You were both miserable and brokenhearted, Hank. I remember." 

 

"Yes!" Hank all but shouted, "And you were trying so hard to fix everything for us, to change things so that we could have someplace where we'd be happy, but Raven and I decided that it wasn't fair for us to just sit there and wait for you to save us. We had to take matters into our own hands."

 

Charles knew his siblings well enough to know that explanation meant that Raven had dashed headfirst into something ridiculous and Hank had been pulled along for the ride. Noble though either of their intentions may have been (and Charles doubted that nobility was really anyone's chief purpose here), he slouched into the stool and sighed, "Hank…"

 

Hank bit his bottom lip and burst out, "We went to the Wizard Erik."

 

Charles paused, drawing in a painfully slow breath through his nose and then out through his mouth, stopping himself before he snapped back exactly what he thought of that plan.

 

The Wizard Erik was powerful but reckless, having gotten fed up with the rules and regulations that normally confined Witches and Wizards in polite society. Instead he had taken up residence in an enchanted castle that roamed through the Wilds that made up the borderlands between the Kingdom of Genosha and the Waste. Given Westchester’s position on the edge of the Wilds of Genosha, most of the town’s citizens had caught a glimpse of the castle slipping through the mist. There were whispers about him, that he could perform magic so great that he could accomplish any spell you asked of him, but he would charge you your soul. Charles didn't believe rumors so ridiculous (there would have been an official statement from the Council of Wizards if Erik was practicing an art so dark as that), but all the whispers about the Wizard still gave him pause. Especially considering that Raven and Hank must've roamed out into the wild hills outside Westchester and gone looking for Erik's moving castle.

 

Hank could read the expression on Charles's face and frantically began explaining, "He really was very nice!" Charles quirked an eyebrow and Hank amended, "Alright, not exactly nice, but not terrible either. After all those stories I've heard about him I was expecting candles and chanting, and to have to swear an oath over a bowl of blood, but he wasn't so terrible as all that. The main room of his castle was filthy, to be sure, but he was perfectly polite, and respectful."

 

"Tell me Hank, what did he ask for in payment?"

 

"He, um, didn't." Hank blushed, well aware from the few lessons on business that Charles had been able to force into his head that that was a terrible idea. Hank rushed on before Charles could scold him and storm out of the bakery to hunt down the wizard in question, "Raven explained our situation and talked him into a spell that made her look like me and me look like her, and we offered to pay him, but he said that we wouldn't be coming to him if we had the kind of money that the spell would require, so he'd think about what he wanted from us and come to perform the spell and explain his payment in three days time."

 

"He came to the house?" Charles demanded, offended that a rogue wizard had violated the sanctity of his home.

 

Hank darted around his worktable and held up his hands to calm Charles down. "Yes, but he didn't do anything! At least, I don't think he did anything. We went downstairs to meet in him the shop so you'd never see him since you were still up at the kitchen table, but by the time we made it downstairs he was already there, sitting." Hank paused then rushed out, "sitting at the table drinking tea."

 

"Where was I!" Charles sputtered.

 

"You were asleep. We didn't now if you'd just fallen asleep looking at all the finances again or if he'd put a spell on you." Hank hesitated, "Neither one of us thought it would be a good idea to ask." Before Charles could snap out anything else Hank pressed on, "Seeing you there, working so hard to give us what we wanted, it changed his mind. Whatever he'd been meaning to ask for in payment he said it didn't matter anymore. And he gave us a more powerful spell than what we'd bargained for." Hank extended his hand to Charles, showing off a thin, braided strap of leather wrapped around his wrist. "It's a powerful enchantment, designed so that when people look at us they'll see what we want them to see."

 

Charles huffed out a calming breath and examined the knot work in the braid, the apothecary in him unwillingly impressed by the obvious quality of the enchantment. "So your employer looks at you and sees Raven."

 

"Yes. Though Raven says that after she'd impressed Wizard Armando for the first time she confessed to him that we'd switched."

 

Charles paused, "The spell on this was so powerful that Armando couldn't see through it?"

 

"No. Erik said it would be impenetrable until we chose to make it otherwise." Hank gave him a hesitant grin, "I guess Erik didn't plan on you."

 

Charles snorted, calming down enough to see how nervous Hank was to tell him all this, obviously more than a little terrified that Charles would stay furious with him, or even force them both to go back to their original places. Charles sighed and swept his younger, but taller, brother into his embrace and whispered, "I'm happy you're happy, Hank. I just wish you would've told me. I would've helped you any way I could."

 

Hank buried his face in the crook of Charles's neck and heaved a desperately thankful sigh, mumbling, "I wanted to. We _both_ wanted to. But we felt like it was something we had to do on our own."

 

Charles snorted, "Well that's ridiculous and you should never think such a horrid thing again. I'm your brother, I will _always_ be there for you, not matter how ludicrous your plans might be."

 

Hank giggled, and Charles knew that all would be well. He prodded his brother down onto the other spare stool and demanded that the boy tell him everything about his time at the bakery, everything he would've told Charles if they'd been talking like they should. With bright eyes Hank rambled to Charles all about his newfound infatuation with baked goods. Hank was still too skinny to get much enjoyment out of eating them, but the process of taking a merely adequate recipe and experimenting until it was perfect had given Hank the kind of stability he never would have gotten as a Wizard.

 

When Hank finally wound down, Charles gently took Hank's hands in both of his and asked, "Are you happy here, Hank? Because if you want to, you can come back to the apothecary. We're making enough that you don't have to stay here."

 

Hank smiled back, "I _am_ happy here, Charles." Hank reached out with one of his long arms and grabbed a stack of papers off one of the nearby shelved and tentatively handed them to Charles. "I've been thinking, if you know how to properly make the medicines, to do all the things that an apothecary shop is supposed to do, and I know how to make them taste good, then perhaps we could become and entirely new kind of shop." The papers on top were Hank's experiments to take a potion for the cold - one of the few recipes that Hank had always felt comfortable with - and put it in a cookie.

 

Charles quirked an eyebrow, "A chocolate chip cure for the common cold?"

 

"Actually," Hank pushed his glasses up his nose and pointed to a chart of results on page three, "there's something about the cocoa in the chocolate chips that the ingredients for the potion doesn't combine well with. Chocolate chip cookies, fudge brownies, anything chocolaty can't be used for the cold potion. However, I'm currently having great success with any cookies that involve molasses." Charles let Hank explain to him some more of the experiments, offering up suggestions that all but proved Hank's point that together they could pull off his plan.

 

Eventually Charles asked about Raven, wanting to know the things about her that he would've been told if he'd been let in on the plan in the first place. Apparently Raven was doing splendidly under Armando's tutelage. It seemed she had a gift for transforming things into new shapes, or just changing their appearances, and Armando had said that within the year he believed that Raven would be able to create and sell concealment spells all on her own. "Although," Hank blushed, "I'm not sure how much of that is Raven's own skill, and how much is Erik's advice."

 

Charles sighed, and scolded himself for thinking that things would have settled so nicely as he thought. "Let me guess, the Wizard Erik has been dropping by Armando's house to 'check up' on Raven."

 

"Got it in one. Raven says he drops by at least once a week, and based off the way he was staring at her when he went to his castle, I wouldn't be surprised if Mother's plan comes true anyway."

 

"I have a feeling that _marrying_ Raven is probably not foremost in his mind, Hank."

 

"You didn't see the way he looked at her Charles. Though, I supposed it might be the way he looks at anything he thinks is interesting. It's intense, and unabashed. It might just be his strange eyes though."

 

Charles paused, a pain of certainty ripping through his chest at Hank's offhand comment. Charles asked, "Oh, and what's wrong with his eyes?" trying to stay nonchalant all while silently repeating to himself, 'Not blue, not blue, not blue,' only to be interrupted by Hank's description, "They're this funny sort of light blue. The color isn't all the strange, but it's almost like there's a wall up on the other side of them. Like the light won't reflect properly and they're just made of glass. It's slightly unnerving." And with that, Charles's lovely day came crashing down.

 

The handsome man.

 

The man who'd just danced across the town square with Charles nestled in his arms was none other than the Wizard Erik, trying to cozy up to Charles to get in good with his little sister.

 

Charles stumbled off his stool, hastily grabbing his jacket from the coat rack while he fumbled out, "I just realized how late it is. I promised a few customers I'd be back to the shop to give them their purchases before they headed out for the fireworks tonight."

 

"Oh," Hank's face fell, like he thought that perhaps Charles was done for the day and they could spend the rest of the night nestled in Hank's corner of the bakery discussing his notes.

 

Charles put a gentle hand on Hank's shoulder, but still shrugged on his coat. "I really am sorry about this Hank. Perhaps you can drop by in a few days and we can have lunch, catch up some more." Hank put on a brave face, and under normal circumstances Charles would have been thrilled to spend the night discussing science with his brother, but tonight he was mortified, sick to his stomach at the humiliation that he'd been making cow eyes at a man who fancied Raven. Charles pressed a warm kiss to Hank's temple, promising to see him soon, and then made for the door like his life depended on it.

 

"Charles!" Hank called before he could slip away, "I thought you hated flowers?"

 

The question was innocuous enough, just curious Hank wanting to understand something before he forgot about the question, but Charles remembered the daisy in his hair with a stab of pain. He went to pluck it out, replying, "Someone stuck it in my hair while I was…" and trailed off at the crown of immaculate, multi-layered, ruby-red daisies that came off in his hand. Erik had tucked the flower behind his ear and then with a brush of his fingers transformed it into a halo. Before Hank could ask what had him so pale Charles lurched out the back door of the bakery and into the alleyway that he'd meant to come in through before Erik had found him and made him a fool.

 

Charles didn't remember stumbling back through all those dark and isolated alleys to make his way home to the empty shop. There were no customers waiting there for him to make him feel useful, and none came for the rest of the day. The whole of the town was out there celebrating May Day while Charles sat in the dark corners of his storeroom. He'd meant to work on a new potion, but his hands were shaking too terribly to get anything done, so he'd sat down on his step stool, head in his hands, and couldn't bring himself to move for hours.

 

And so it went for days. Charles dealt with his customers and made his potions like he was a wraith, unable to smile at them all like he once had, bled dry of the buoyant life that had been keeping him afloat in the months since the Wizard Erik had first entered their family's shop. He felt hollow, and no amount of lunch with Hank, or tea with little old women could bring him back to the pleasure of before. (And no matter how he called himself a fool for holding on to it, the halo of daisies stayed safely on his dresser, apparently unable to wilt thanks to Erik's magic.)

 

Over the days Charles began to put aside his heartache and pick up his anger. Slowly but steadily Charles got furious, thinking to himself all the nasty things he would say to the infamous Wizard Erik the second he got the chance. But always at the base of it was the ache of disappointment that the one time he'd been noticed was the result of nothing more than his sister.

 

Over a week after May Day Charles was sitting at the shop, quiet and isolated in the few minutes before closing up the doors for the night. Angel was away visiting Raven at Armando's, leaving Charles there to handle the shop on his own, which did make things simpler for Charles to run the business, but there was something soothing about having his stepmother’s voice in the background while he did his work. Save for the few regular customers who came in to take their tea with Charles, it had been an almost painfully quiet week.

 

Charles was in back setting up for one of the experiments that he could only conduct when he was sure he wasn't going to be interrupted, when the bell rang at the front of the shop, signaling that a customer was there. Charles bit back a sigh of irritation at having to plaster on his fake smile and make nice when he was so close to being done for the day, but he did it anyway. He straightened his, admittedly rumpled, vest and strode out to the front counter with a smile that was painful to maintain.

 

The best description for the woman standing there that Charles could summon up was dignified. Her white hair was drawn up into a complicated braid of a bun at the crown of her head; Her dress was an exquisite dark brocade that Raven would've called about a hundred years out of date. She held herself stiffly, like her bones had grown tired of holding up her not inconsiderable weight. While Charles looked his fill of her, she glanced around the shop with an expression of severe distaste and Charles had to stifle the urge to inform her that they were closed for the evening just so he wouldn't have to put up with her. Instead he shored up his smile and asked, "How may I help you, ma'am?"

 

The woman took one long look up and down the length of Charles, like she was sizing him up for roasting before she replied, "That depends. Are you Mister Xavier?"

 

Something about this woman, for all her posh aloofness, set off warning bells in Charles's head, but Mister Xavier could only be him or Hank (or Raven as the case may be), and he would far rather that this woman and her dead eyes came looking for Charles instead of his siblings. "Yes ma'am, I am."

 

She hmm-ed to herself, disappointedly, while she took a quick tour around the shop. She poked at several of the vials Charles had on display along one wall, and then flicked her fingers like there was something distasteful now coating her skin from touching them. Charles bit his tongue and with all the geniality imprinted on him by Angel he asked again, "May I be of assistance?"

 

"I am unimpressed, Mister Xavier," she sighed in disappointment. "Erik has a gift for finding the most interesting of companions," she paused and gave Charles a look that was simultaneously lecherous and demeaning, like she was dealing in subjects that a man so plain as him would never find a way to understand, "and he has had many, many companions my dear boy." Charles unwillingly blushed, which she seemed to be waiting for before she continued, "I was prepared to forgive him for his little dalliance if you had proved interesting, but you have proven to be one of the most pathetically uninteresting creatures I have come across."

 

Plain and simple though Charles may be, he was fully capable of putting two and two together when it was staring at him across his shop counter. This woman had come for Raven. So while Charles's pride and his temper demand that he throw her out of his home before she could stain the place with her insulting demeanor, he held his tongue. Through gritted teeth he replied, "I'm sorry you find me so disappointing Madame, but I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

 

She gave him another demeaning sort of little smile, "Oh you don't, do you?"

 

"No, ma'am. I don't know any Eriks. Least of all ones who would be worth your attention."

 

She sneered and the shadows around her seemed to grow and writhe with her displeasure. "You honestly think that you can get away with lying to me, Mister Xavier?"

 

"It's not a lie, ma'am. I’ve never been introduced to any Eriks!"

 

She stormed over to the door and smacked the wood with the palm of her hand, her power echoing out and causing everything in the shop to rattle with the force of her magic. Charles thought it was some sort of tantrum until faint lines began to appear on the wood, steadily growing brighter until the whole surface was covered in a complicated sigil of knot work. Before Charles had the chance to recover the woman shouted, "Now do you mean to lie to me?"

 

Charles tried to refute since he had no idea what was going on here, but at the moment he couldn't seem to find words that meant something, only stuttering. The woman sneered, "That is the mark of the Wizard Erik, a sign in magic that he has tied to his power and only he can make. Erik has blessed your pathetic little shop, leashing it to the well of magic that supplies his own strength. It is among the greatest honors and most powerful gifts that a wizard can leave on a location and you mean to tell me that you don't know who he is?"

 

And well, without declaring to all and sundry that Erik was apparently quite besotted with Charles's sister, there really wasn't any defense against evidence like that. So Charles bit his lip and let the woman think whatever she wanted to. And based off her frankly murderous expression she thought the worst.

 

She sneered at him again, as though he was even more pathetic than she had first realized and snapped, "Child, I am the Witch of the Waste, and I have never been fond of competition. Even competition so laughable as you."

 

Charles abruptly paled at that, fully aware that all of the horrible things that Erik was rumored to be, the Witch of the Waste actually was, and it was more than likely that he was about to be killed where he stood. Instead, the Witch just flicked her flicked her wrist at Charles, tossing nothingness in his direction. Charles tensed, expecting some sort of crushing pain and his life flashing before his eyes, but instead there was nothing. He opened his eyes to see the Witch smirking at him like he was a child. She smiled at him, all teeth, and hissed, "Whatever beauty it was that Erik saw in you, he will know better now. And of course, as with all my spells, you'll never be able to tell anyone about it." And with that, she was gone in a flick of overdone dress.

 

Charles stayed frozen on the spot for a moment before he tried to dart to the door and lock it, for all the good that would do, but he stumbled like his legs weren't capable of carrying him. He caught himself on the counter and looked down, only to see his hands, that not ten seconds ago had been thin but sturdy, were now knobbed and wrinkled, with bulbous veins breaking the line of his thin skin. Those new hands immediately shot to his face and found sagging skin on his cheeks, and deep wrinkles around his eyes. Then, ever so slowly Charles slipped his hands to the top of his head and… merciful heavens he was completely bald! Charles slowly sank to his knees, feeling the kind of ache in his joints that meant it would take him time to get back up. He stayed there for several long minutes, sucking in deep breaths while he fought back his panic.

 

These minutes were all the time Charles gave himself to wallow in his newfound fate, because any longer and he never would've gotten up off the floor. He knew full well that he couldn't stay here, Angel would have a meltdown and there was a more than decent possibility that Raven would find out and go to hunt down the Witch of the Waste herself. No, there was nothing to be gained by staying curled up in a ball on the floor of the shop, but if Charles got to his feet and made his way out into the wilds there was a chance he might come across Erik, and despite the fact that the man was a scoundrel, he was still a wizard, and perhaps he could put Charles back to rights. (After all, it was the least he owed Charles for making a fool of him.)

 

With the hope of that chance Charles pushed himself to his feet and climbed the stairs to his room, where he gathered into a bag a change or two of clothes, and the few things he couldn't bring himself to be without (the halo of daisies included). Bringing together the remnants of his life was the work a few minutes, and then Charles put on his coat, left a note telling Angel he'd gone to another apothecary's shop to look at ingredients, and slipped out the door and into the waiting night.

 

The shop was by no means in the center of town, so it was only a few minutes hobble to the edge of Westchester and the beginning of the Wilds. Charles tugged his coat a little tighter around himself against the slight chill of night – no matter how pleasant the air would've been when he was a young man – and didn't even bother looking back.

 

Charles took one of the easier paths up into the hills that he knew from when he and his father would go looking for interesting herbs to experiment with. The path took him on a gentle slope up through the greener part of the lands, not terribly far from a stream deeper in or the main road further out. He went along slowly and stiffly, but consistently, for about an hour before his knees finally decided to make their displeasure known. Charles was sure that if he sat down on one of the rocks that were looking more and more appealing by the moment then he wouldn't be getting back up for the rest of the night. Instead, he went to lean against the nearby bush, just for a moment, but the hedge growled at him.

 

Charles had a terrible moment where he thought he was about to meet his demise – and really, this is why people weren't supposed to be leave the safety of the road – when instead, the bush barked. Charles crouched down as far as his unhappy knees would let him and saw a tail beating frantically within the confines of the hedge. It appeared that the dog had gotten stuck and had tried to find his way out by pushing forward instead of back.

 

Rather than leave the poor thing to its fate and the hope that somehow it would work its way free before something larger came along to eat it, Charles reached into the hedge and grabbed the dog high on his hind legs. The dog flailed as much as the shrubbery would let him, but Charles just ran a soothing hand along the dog's thigh and crooned, "No, no, no, my friend. Don’t worry. I'm not going to hurt you." The dog calmed surprisingly quickly, but given how Charles' thighs couldn't stay crouched for much longer he chose not to think too deeply about that. Instead he slowly began pulling the dog backwards out of the bush over the path that he'd taken in the first place. The dog remained calm and still for the whole process, and when Charles finally got it free it gave him a genial little 'yap' before running off into the darkness.

 

Charles stayed crouched there for a long moment, utterly baffled by this strange turn of events, but then the long-limbed, red-haired dog came running back to him and barked at Charles like he was saying he wasn't going to wait all night for Charles to come along. Charles just stared at the dog, then decided that his night couldn't possibly get any stranger, and followed after him.

 

The dog trotted along peaceably in front of Charles for another two hours, sniffing his way along the trail of what, Charles couldn't possibly imagine. Just when Charles had reached the point where he was ready to lay down in on the grass beneath his feet and sleep until he couldn't sleep anymore, he followed the dog over a rise, and in the valley below he saw a castle.

 

Erik's moving castle was tall and narrow, and looked like it had been hewn out of stone. The whole building rocked back and forth while the spindly legs underneath carried it along, only a slight motion at the bottom that swelled to wide arc at the top. As the castle swayed, pieces of it caught the moonlight, glinting with the sheen of metal. Charles assumed that all that movement couldn't be good for a building made of stone and mortar, and so the crumbling bits had been pieced back together with slabs of shining copper. And yet, it pressed on, seemingly unconcerned with its own instability.

 

The dog nudged Charles in the back of the knee, obviously directing him towards the building that was slowly and effortlessly moving from one end of the valley floor to the other. As seemed to be the trend for the evening, Charles decided not to question the exceptionally strange cards that fate had dealt him and stumbled down the hill towards the castle that he honestly hadn't ever expected to find. He made it halfway down the hillside before he realized that his red guide dog wasn't following him. He turned around to find the dog sitting at the top of the hill, watching to make sure that Charles hadn't fallen. "Aren't you coming?"

 

The dog barked and pointed it's nose off to the left, implying that it had places to go and people to see someplace that wasn't the moving castle. "Well, if you're sure." Charles replied, determinedly not thinking about the fact that he was conversing with a dog. "You've been excellent company though, and thank you for all your help!" The dog gave a happy yip of welcome, but remained standing at his spot, just in case. Charles rolled his eyes at being coddled by an animal, but he slowly made his way down the rest of the hill and towards the castle.

 

The building wasn't moving particularly fast, and despite his now worn out knees and the exhaustion he had been feeling moments before, Charles still managed to catch up to the floating castle before it escaped him completely. (Apparently dashing was good for the joints.) He caught the thick metal railing attached to the back steps and hauled himself up off the grass. He paused for a moment, more than a little winded from the effort, then pushed himself up to his feet in time with the swaying of the castle and knocked on the heavy wooden door.

 

Considering the movement of the castle meant that Charles was more likely to be thrown from the stairs than not, he only waited a few spare seconds and then pounded again, and a moment later it swung open to reveal a boy with tousled blonde hair, who seemed no older than Hank. The boy crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his chin as though that would make him formidable and demanded, "What do you want?"

 

Charles was thoroughly not in the mood to deal with mouthy teenagers considering he'd just been cursed on behalf of one of them and instead nudged past the boy and into the room behind him, declaring, "I should think that was obvious."

 

The door opened into a warm room full of anarchy. There was a massive kitchen table shoved off to one side and covered with all manner of debris, stacks of paper spilling over into indeterminate mounds, random half-empty vials with poorly maintained stoppers, and more than a few bottles of what Charles was fairly certain was either paint thinner or alcohol. And that table was a good barometer for the state of the rest of the room. Any surface that could maintain the clutter did, as well as a mountain of documents impossibly perched on the spider thin top of a lamp.

 

Certain that he wasn't about to be set upon by any sort of wild creature, Charles shifted a pile of documents off one of the chairs and tugged it over to settle himself in front of the hearth. The blonde boy continued to spout all the reasons that Charles couldn't be there, until Charles turned to him and glowered until the boy stopped talking. Charles paused for a moment and focused on the way the little old men in the village would scold the youths when they thought they were out of line and replied, "Young man, I am tired, and it's unpleasant out there in the Wild. I happened across your castle at precisely the moment when I thought I would drop to my knees from exhaustion. I choose to take that as a sign."

 

"But it's not my castle!" The boy shouted, almost desperate.

 

Charles quirked an eyebrow at him like the thought of this child owning a castle was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I know full well whose castle this is, young man."

 

"No," the boy lurched forward and dropped to his knees to meet Charles eye to eye, "you don't. And he's not gonna be happy when he gets home and finds you here!"

 

Charles put a hand on the side of the boy's face, "Is he going to hurt you?"

 

The boy snorted and smacked Charles's hand out of the way. Charles would have been offended if he hadn't seen the way the boy relaxed at a little gentle human touch, so he chalked the reaction up to embarrassment. "Of course not! He's probably going to turn you into a toad though."

 

The boy stormed across the room, pacing out his frustration while Charles muttered to himself, "At this point an amphibian would be an improvement. I know what to do about that."

 

The boy whirled around to shout something new at Charles, only to be stopped by a deep and gritty voice that declared, "Let him stay, kid."

 

The boy turned his wrath, not to Charles, but to the fireplace beside him and yelled, "You just want him to stay because it'll piss Erik off!"

 

The boy and the voice continued their shouting match, but Charles couldn't bring himself to pay any attention to the content of their conversation once he caught sight of the source of the voice.

 

There was a creature in the fire.

 

No, not a creature _in_ the fire, it _was_ the fire. The lines of the creature’s body were poorly defined, ever changing with the flickering of the flames that made up his mass. But Charles could make out two arms (since they were gesturing furiously at the boy), a thick body (well, thick compared to the rest of his small frame), and what Charles was forced to call spikes of flame jutting off his head in the place of hair.

 

After a minute of coarse shouting between the two men the fire finally realized that Charles was staring and snapped, "What are you looking' at, bub?"

 

"My apologies for staring," Charles replied automatically, good breeding easily taking over, "I've never seen a talking fire before."

 

The fire grumbled at him, "'M not a fire."

 

"Again, my apologies, but you look like a fire."

 

The not-fire propped himself up on the log in front of him, leaning forward as menacingly as possible for a creature that Charles was fairly certain was restrained in the hearth and murmured, "But we're not always what we look like, are we?" Charles's eyes widened in shock, but before he could ask the not-fire how in the world he knew about the spell when the Witch said it was impossible, the not-fire turned to the boy and ordered, "Go upstairs and get the kid a mattress and some blankets, Alex."

 

"But Logan-"

 

"Now!" the not-fire roared, the flames along his shoulders roaring up to flare uncontrolled out of the fireplace. The boy, Alex apparently, squeaked and dashed up the stairs at the not-fire's command.

 

Charles settled back into his chair, determined to not be intimidated by the not-fire (much easier to do now that he knew its name), and asked, "How did you know?"

 

"I'm a fire demon, kid. Ain't no kind of magic that I don't know about."

 

"Does that mean you can fix me?" Charles asked, trying not to sound quite so desperate as he was.

 

"Nope."

 

"But you said-"

 

"Knowing it doesn't mean I can change it, kid."

 

Charles sunk back into his chair, suddenly feeling the weight of his newfound age settle on his shoulders… and he was tired.

 

The demon reached out a fiery hand smacked the toe of Charles's boot, "If you're just gonna lay down and die then it doesn't matter if there's anyone out there who can help you."

 

Thunking his head against the back of the chair Charles replied, "If you can't help me than I assume Erik can't help me, and there's no one else I can think of."

 

Logan grumbled something under his crackling breath that sounded vaguely like, "Humans," and snapped, "Erik might, but the only person you can be sure can take it off is the Witch."

 

Charles slammed back to consciousness and shouted, "You want me to have anything to do with that madwoman! She turned me into this!" Despite lacking definite facial features Logan still managed to give Charles a look that screamed, 'Duh'. "No. Absolutely not. I refuse to have a thing to do with her. Besides, it's quite likely that she'd do far worse to me the second time."

 

Logan reached into a hole in the bricks and pulled out a cigar, lighting the tip of it with one of his sparks of hair. He took a long drag on the cigar, blowing out a cloud of smoke easily distinguished from the smoke that trailed off from the top of his head. "What did you do to get yourself changed into an old man?"

 

Charles awkwardly cleared his throat, "It was a simple case of mistaken identity."

 

"Apparently not that simple. And you didn't try telling her you weren't who she was looking for?"

 

Charles bit his lower lip, an expression so young that Logan could see the image of the youth he must've been before this whole thing started. "Because I would rather have her after me than the person she was really after."

 

"Well then, it seems like you're going to have to give the Witch something to make it worth her while to change you back."

 

"You're suggesting I bribe the woman who did this to me in the first place? And just hope that she doesn't make it worst once she has what she wants?" Charles asked dryly.

 

The fire demon shrugged, "That’s up to you, bub. I'm the age I'm supposed to be."

 

"Why are you telling me this?"

 

"You don't think I'm giving away this information free, do you kid?"

 

"But you've already told me to go to the Witch."

 

"I've told you to go to her, not how to get there."

 

"And what is it you want in exchange?"

 

"I'll tell you when it's time."

 

"That is an absolutely ridiculous bargain. I don't agree to deals that I don't know the terms of."

 

Logan took a mocking puff on his cigar and replied, "Then you can stay an old man."

 

Alex thumped down the stairs; tugging a mattress along behind him with blankets flung over his shoulders and trailing along like an awkward cape. Charles tried to push himself to his feet to help carry them, but his knees weren't having it. Alex grumbled at the effort but said, "Stay put, old man." Charles accepted that he'd be even less use lugging things than he had been before. Despite the harsh words Alex pushed the mattress over to the hearth in front of Logan. Charles gave him a small smile for the effort, but the boy just blushed and grunted, "Logan'll be able to keep you alive long enough for you to explain to Erik what in the hell you're doing here."

 

That didn't stop Charles from reaching out to grab Alex's forearm and replying, "Still, you have my thanks." To which the boy just blushed all the harder and dashed up the stairs, shouting his goodnights to the fire demon.

 

Charles slipped out of the chair and straight onto the mattress beside him, pausing for a moment to straighten the sheets that had come undone during transit. With that he pulled off his boots and stripped down to his undershirt before sliding under the blankets, reveling in the unearthly warmth of Logan. The fire demon had been watching Charles go through the motions, pretending like he wasn't paying ardent attention while he puffed away on that cigar. The moment Charles's head hit the pillow Logan withdrew on himself, tugging in on his light so he just barely glowed. Eyes closed from the exhaustion of his day Charles murmured, "Thank you, Logan."

 

The fire demon was quiet for a long moment before he replied, "You could be young again."

 

Charles snorted, "Or I could be a toad," and within a few breaths slipped into sleep.

 

XXXXX

 

Charles's sleep was surprisingly comfortable, something that he attributed more to his exhaustion than to the lumpy mattress that Alex had brought him. Judging by the quality of the light coming through the windows looking out over the Wilds it was still fairly early in the morning, but late enough that if he'd been at home Charles would've felt like quite the layabout. As it was, he took advantage of the spryness that came with a good night's rest and pushed his mattress away from Logan's hearth and over to a wall that seemed a bit more out of the way. Logan, it seemed, didn't wake until Charles began precisely folding the blankets and placing them in the just off center on the bed so they wouldn't be knocked over or impede someone who felt like sitting there. Logan, of course, snorted at Charles's fussing and said, "You could'a left the mattress where it was, kid."

 

"But how would you have spouted flames the next time you wanted to terrorize Alex if I left it there?" Charles teased, and Logan had the good grace to smirk in return. (At least, Charles was fairly sure it was a smirk. There was only so much one could tell about the facial ticks of a talking flame.)

 

Once he got the bed squared away Charles took at long look around the room that was intended to be a kitchen, but judging by the shelves full of mismatched bottles and jars, and the loose papers and books that seemed to take up every spare surface, he assumed this functioned as a living room and study as well. Charles walked over to the closest shelf and ran his finger over the wood, leaving a thick dark line behind in the white dust that covered the surface. He blew the coating off his finger, only to break into coughs when he breathed the foul stuff back in. "Is there some manner of organization to this mess that eludes me, or is it just anarchy?"

 

Logan smirked in amusement (again, Charles assumed more from the tone of his voice and the bright yellow of the fire than from the shape of his mouth), "Erik pretends that he's got a system. When he goes looking for something he just rips through all the crap until he finds it."

 

"Well, that's… terribly inefficient."

 

"Freakin' stupid is what it is, you can say it, kid."

 

Charles snorted, "I believe I shall refrain from insulting the man whose kitchen I'll be sleeping in for the near future. However, I do believe that I have found a way to induce Erik into letting me stay."

 

"You're gonna be his maid?"

 

Charles rolled his eyes, "I do believe that the socially appropriate term is 'Assistant'."

 

One particular flame over Logan's eye quirked up in a manner vaguely reminiscent of an eyebrow and the demon snarked, "Alex is his assistant."

 

Charles ignored that flaw in the plan and made his way over to the kitchen cupboards while he replied, "And a man cannot have two assistants?" Unfortunately those cupboards were filled with books rather than food, so Charles made his way over to what appeared to be a bureau instead. "Besides," he continued, "Alex will be Erik's assistant to further his own study of magic, I will be his assistant in business. Two entirely different things."

 

"And what do you know about business, kid?"

 

Charles was about to snap something back about how he had successfully been in charge of the family shop since he was nine, thank you very much, but he stopped himself before the words could come spilling out. Telling the intimate details of his life to a fire demon who already knew about his curse seemed like a thing so foolish as to be on par with Raven and Hank storming out into the wilds to get a spell from Erik in the first place, and seeing how that plan was going, Charles was not in the mood to repeat it. Instead he turned back to Logan, his own clearly delineated eyebrow raised and replied, "You're going to have to work much harder than that if you want my story, Mr. Demon."

 

"Nah, I don't think so," the demon smirked, and this time Charles was sure about that expression.

 

Charles just huffed and pulled open the bureau drawers to find a block of cheese, bacon, a jar of half-drunk orange juice, and eggs rolling back and forth like they were unbreakable toys. Charles stared at the contents for a moment, wondering what sort of organizational system would lump these things together, but decided he was too irritated with Logan to ask.

 

Of course, he didn't have to, and the fire demon interjected, "Erik divides the food by meal. The bread'll be in the middle drawer for lunch."

 

"That… actually makes a surprising amount of sense."

 

Logan shrugged, "He ain't stupid."

 

"No, I don't imagine you could be and manage to be a wizard of his caliber."

 

Charles slipped the necessary ingredients into a basket that was functioning as a lantern-shade and made his way back towards Logan's fire, stopping to grab a long-handed frying pan from under the sofa. Then he stopped and stared at Logan in shock for a moment before he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't even think, do you mind if I use some of your flame to cook breakfast?"

 

Logan just stared at Charles like he had been speaking a foreign language. Charles stood there for a long moment, certain that flinching away from Logan's stare would be exactly the wrong thing to do in this moment. Charles let himself blush as the object of such unrelenting scrutiny, but he remained still. Eventually Logan settled down into his logs, shrinking in on himself in a way that that spread out the mass of his fire to make for more even cooking. Or at least, Charles assumed that was the purpose of Logan's motion, but he stayed put until the fire demon growled, "You gonna cook or not, kid?"

 

"Oh! Yes, yes, of course. Thank you." Charles lined the pan with bacon and gently pushed it forward into Logan's space, careful not infringe too much on the fire demon. Of course, Logan's response to that was to grab the edge of the pan and pull it all the way forward like a blanket. Charles had the good grace to laugh at his own sensitivity, and cooked the rest of the breakfast with far less timidity, chatting pleasantly at Logan about how fond he was of cooking.

 

The smell of bacon was enough to draw Alex nose first down the stairs. Charles smiled brightly at the boy and wished him a good morning, which, in combination with the warm food that the boy looked like he hadn't seen in months, actually got Charles a smile back; unpracticed though it may have appeared. The boy went to clear off one end of the table, attempting to create enough space for the two of them to sit when Charles interrupted, "You know, perhaps we should have breakfast over here, you and I."

 

The boy paused in his already awkward tidying, "Like, on the floor?"

 

"Well, perhaps we could find a pillow or two to spare my knees the discomfort of stone, but I thought it might be nice for all of us to have breakfast together."

 

"Together?" Both Alex and Logan replied simultaneously.

 

"Of course! We can't all just sit in our separate corners and not speak to one another."

 

The man and the fire demon look at one another like Charles was addled and Logan replied," Yeah we can," while Alex quickly tacked on, "We usually do."

 

"Yes well, despite what you might 'usually do', if I am to manage this business I must insist that we all spend a little more time together."

 

Alex opened his mouth, clearly about to ask what 'together time' had to do with the running of the business when Charles steamrolled right over the top of him and declared, "Now, Alex you grab the plates, I'll grab the pillows, and Logan let me know if anything starts to burn." Charles discovered that the benefit to being a little old man was that the young seemed disinclined to tell you when they thought you were being ridiculous, and Alex grabbed the plates with no complaint. Together Alex and Charles settled in on the pillows, and placed the sturdiest of the plates as close to Logan's fire as they could manage. Logan, of course, stared at the plate like he thought Charles had lost what little was left of his mind after the stress of being changed, but he didn't comment, and Alex was too busy devouring his breakfast to care. Despite the initial shock, together the three of them ate a content breakfast, Logan mocking Alex for eating like a wolf, Alex mocking him for being intangible, and Charles laughing at them both. In truth, the breakfast was quite pleasant.

 

Of course, it was pleasant right up until the front door of the castle shook.

 

Beside the door was a hand-sized dial that Charles had somehow missed in his earlier perusal of the space. The dial was a flat metal circle divided into four sections, each marked by their own messy stripe of paint. There was a notch scratched into the wall above the dial, which Charles supposed was the Wizard's rather unsophisticated method of demarcating which section was the one in use. The entire time Charles had been here the dial had been turned to the strip of green paint, while the kitchen windows all showed the Wilds outside. Now the dial spun so the deliberately drawn line of black was turned to the mark and the windows showed nothingness.

 

Alex shoveled in his last few mouthfuls of egg like he thought he was going to get into trouble for daring to eat. Of course, when the door burst open to reveal the Wizard Erik slipping out of an uninterrupted slick of blackness, Charles could understand Alex's concern. The door flicked shut behind Erik of it's own accord, and he tossed off his jacket onto the floor, not even aiming for the coatrack that Charles was almost certain was a still living tree. Erik began rolling up his sleeves and went to yell for Alex, then froze when he took in the scene of domesticity before him.

 

While Erik stared at them all like he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at, Charles did the same at the man in question. If possible, Erik was even more striking than Charles remembered, a benefit of seeing the man in his natural habitat, he supposed. The man was dressed casually, a loose shirt tucked into long breeches and nothing but the black overcoat that he'd tossed off to the side. Frankly, for a man of the wizard's station he was very nearly undressed. And yet, it suited him, like this level of dishevelment was precisely the way he was meant to be and any time you saw him otherwise was the mistake.

 

Inadvertently Charles put his hand up to check his own hair, a guttural reaction that no one could seem to tamp down then they were stuck by the beauty of someone. Then Charles remembered he'd been aged several decades and no amount of primping would have ever made him handsome in the first place, let alone now that he was bald.

 

Unlike Charles, Erik quickly got over his own surprise took a look around the room, picking up details that might explain why Charles was there before he settled his focus on the rucksack by Charles's mattress. Charles puffed out his chest and snapped, "That's my bag," though to be honest, he didn't quite know why he was so offended by Erik paying attention to his luggage.

 

Erik ignored Charles's statement and looked to Logan with an expression that Charles would almost categorize as surprise. Then, because neither one of them had the temperament to make things easy on Charles by just speaking, Logan seemed to answer Erik's question with a flicker of the flames around his face that Charles had no idea how to interpret.

 

Then together both man and demon turned their attention to Charles. He had the vague impression that the two of them were attempting to separate Charles's skin from his bones by using their thoughts, but after a long moment of nothing happening, Erik actually reached out his hand into the empty space between he and Charles and pulled. Charles felt something like air but decidedly not, rip past him, and still nothing happened.

 

Charles quirked an eyebrow and dryly asked, "If you're quite done trying to see if I'm something unsavory then perhaps we could move on to the business of the day and then maybe Logan will be kind enough to let you have some breakfast."

 

Erik just blinked, then turned back to Logan with an expression that Charles knew full well meant, 'what the hell'? Charles cleared his throat again and strode over to collect the really rather posh jacket that had no businesses being on a floor quite this disgusting. "Wizard Erik, I presume? My name is Charles, and Mister Logan has contacted me about being your business manager." Charles ran a soothing hand over the bark of the tree masquerading as a coat rack until the tree shivered and stuck out a branch for Charles to hang up Erik's jacket. "I had thought Mister Logan was exaggerating about the state of your affairs, but now that I've seen your utter lack of organization and the frankly appalling state of your laboratory, I have decided to accept the job offer."

 

Logan somehow managed to have his elbow propped up on one of the logs and his chin resting in the palm of his hand, watching Erik be steamrolled over the top of like it was hilarious. Erik turned to the fire demon and Charles tried to just keep on talking so Erik wouldn't have the chance to question anything until the opportunity was long past, but Erik tossed up his hand to silence Charles, and based off Alex's frantic hand signals, Charles decided to keep his mouth shut. Rather than reply, Logan just grinned, which seemed to be all the certification the Wizard needed.

 

Erik smirked, something dangerous and feral that did things to Charles's blood pressure, and stepped directly into Charles's space, staring down at him like he had when they were dancing. Charles flushed red and cursed that age was supposed to strip you of these guttural reactions to the handsome. "So, what precisely are you intending to manage?"

 

"I should think that was obvious," Charles snarked, stepping out of Erik's personal space.

 

Of course, the wizard took his as a sign to follow after him and somehow trick Charles into pressing his back up against the wall, penned in by the strength of Erik's arms. Which Charles had to admit, was going to be fodder for dreams for many nights to come. "You'll be handling me, then."

 

Charles forcibly reminded himself of Raven's laughing face and dropped under Erik's arm and out of range, pointing over to the bookshelves full of mismatched papers and unlabeled vials, "I was actually going to focus on those first. Any handling of you as a businessman will have to wait until I've seen you actually interact with a…" Erik came to stand behind Charles, the length of his front pressed up against the line of Charles's back, "customer."

 

"I assure you," he breathed into Charles's ear, "I am excellent at… interacting."

 

Charles sunk back into Erik's embrace for half a moment, drawn in by the way the man made his blood sing, but after that moment Charles forced himself to straighten up and move away. "I do believe that if you ask nicely then Logan will let you make some breakfast, but I would like to get started the organizing. As it stands I fear there's a very good chance I might perish of old age before I get things finished."

 

With his back to Erik, Charles began to make sense of everything scattered across the kitchen table, planning to use that as his base of organization. But because he so ardently refused to look at Erik, Charles missed the frustrated look that the wizard and his fire demon exchanged.

 

XXXXX

 

Charles spent the rest of his day working on the anarchy that was Erik's kitchen, beginning with the piles of paperwork that seemed to have taken up residence practically everyplace in the room. There were stacks lining the kitchen table, several binders tucked under the couch cushions, a notebook in the dinner drawer (with no food), and spare scraps of paper tucked into every nook and cranny that Charles happened to stumble across. He made it his first order of business to get all the paperwork into one place, and then hopefully begin dividing it into categories.

 

While Charles organized, young Alex spent the day on Charles's mattress in the corner, a pile of books beside him and trying to figure out how to light a candle without a match. (Apparently Alex's natural gift was for fire, but it tended more towards large explosions than controlled finesse.) Alex set a few random bits of the kitchen accidentally on fire while he studied (thankfully avoiding the kitchen table every time). When something would burst into flames Erik would look up from the book he was pretending to read and with a flick of his wrist pull the flame back into nothing. (Charles was desperately curious about the relationship between these two men, because despite Alex's obvious frustration, never once did he shout at Erik for the exercise.)

 

While Charles worked and Alex studied, Erik sat in the window bench overlooking the wilds and watched Charles organize while he pretended to read. Charles never actually caught the Wizard looking of course, but the hair on his neck stood up every time he turned his back to Erik. Added to that, occasionally he could feel the brush of Erik's magic along his skin, a little different every time it touched him, but there was something about it that was so uniquely Erik that Charles knew the wizard had spent the whole day staring at him for reasons unknown.

 

Just as Charles was contemplating pulling both men away from their work in favor of lunch, there was a furious knock on the door. Logan was sprawled on top of one of the logs in the hearth, aimlessly puffing away on his cigar when he grunted, "Hammer Bay door." The poorly painted dial beside the door twisted around so the blue streak pointed up to the mark on the wall. The scene outside the kitchen windows shuddered into a view down a long boulevard and into a city by the clear, blue seaside.

 

Erik didn't look up from the book he was 'reading' to toss a mostly empty bottle at Alex's head. The boy groaned and complained, "Come on man, I handled him last time!"

 

"And yet," Erik snorted, "I don't care because you're living in my house."

 

Alex dropped back onto the bed with a groan, mumbling about the annoyance that was little old men. Charles ignored the bite of pain that came with wondering if despite all the small affections that Alex had shown him that was honestly his opinion, and instead stormed for the door. He dramatically rolled his eyes at the both of them, the useless lot that they were. Erik gave no sign that he saw or even cared, and simply flicked his wrist and wrapped himself up in invisibility. Charles snorted; it was just like the man to skirt his responsibilities. Charles lifted the door's heavy latch and swung it open, only to be barreled over.

 

The 'little old man' that Alex had been dreading was, in fact, not quite so little at all. He was broad in the shoulders, with a strong jaw, and a long, lion-like mane of thick, while hair. (And no, Charles was not bitter about his own baldness at all.) The man immediately began to ramble in a language that Charles had never heard before. He stormed over to Alex on legs that were far more sure than Charles's own, and Charles began to suspect that the man wasn't nearly as old as his white hair would lead you to believe.

 

Alex just sighed at the fuss and went over to the bookshelves that Charles had yet to tidy and began looking for whatever it was the man was so ardent about getting. While Charles was distracted by the show, hands came out of nowhere and grabbed Charles underneath his arms and hefted him back to his feet. Charles very nearly squeaked at the motion, but even after a few scant touches he knew that it was Erik. The Wizard tugged Charles out of the way of the door and ran a soothing hand along Charles's spine before he removed the touch and became nothing.

 

The white-haired man's tone slipped from chiding to angry, and he and his screams stepped far to close to Alex for Charles's liking. The boy looked ready to set the man on fire for whatever he was saying when, from one step to the next, Erik materialized behind the shouting man. Erik seized him by the back of the jacket with far less care than he had used on Charles and started to drag him to the door. The man looked over his shoulder to turn his screaming to whoever was touching him, but he froze at the sight of Erik. Of course, he quickly regained himself and went back to shouting, but that pause was enough for Erik to cross the whole of the kitchen and throw their visitor unceremoniously out the still open front door.

 

The door slammed shut behind the man of its own accord, and the dial twisted immediately back to the green paint of the Wilds. Alex sagged onto a cleared corner of the table and groaned, "I hate that old bastard."

 

"If it's any consolation he won't be coming back for a month." Erik shrugged.

 

Alex looked up at him in horror, "You threw him out on his ass and he's not gonna stay away for years?"

 

Erik gave him a leer, "If he doesn't get his potion he doesn't get it up."

 

Charles blushed furiously, "You're making him a potion for, for… that?"

 

Alex snickered and Erik deliberately loomed over Charles, "You mean a potion to get him hard, Charles?"

 

"I mean," Charles sputtered, "whatever it was that you meant."

 

Erik pressed up against him, pushing Charles up against the wall beside the door, "I mean he's strung himself out on potions and spells trying to regain his youth so he can keep his much younger wife interested. It's such a shame isn't it?" Erik paused to put his hands of Charles's hips, "to be stuck with someone who doesn't burn your blood, doesn't make you feel alive."

 

The dial beside Charles's shoulder thankfully chose that moment to spin. The sound pulled away Erik's attention for long enough that Charles regained his common sense and got away from Erik's looming presence. With a cackle, Logan called out, "Capital door." Erik rolled his eyes and looked back to the wall where Charles had been, then glowered at the old man when he realized that Charles had fled the scene of the flirtation and taken refuge on the other side of the room. Erik was obviously irritated about something; probably that Charles wasn't playing along in his quest to successfully seduce everyone, old men included.

 

Erik tossed open the front door while he was busy glaring at Charles and thus missed the frankly stunning woman standing at his front door. She donned a teasing smile and asked the shoulder that Erik had facing her, "Is this a bad time?"

 

Erik jumped and turned to the door with a look that Charles almost thought of as panic, "Emma!" Erik calmed immediately and slouched against the doorframe trying to look casual, "I wasn't expecting you."

 

The tease to her smile grew a little more like a smirk, "Yes, I can see that." They stood there awkwardly for a moment before she asked, "May I come in, or are you intending to perform a spell for me on the stoop?"

 

Erik started and moved out of Emma's way, letting her sweep into the room and everything looked pathetic in comparison. (Not that Charles had managed to make the room anything near presentable over the course of the day, but he didn't need one of Erik's women making it look worse.) She glistened, long curls of white-blonde hair bound up at the crown of her head, exposing the long, pale line of her neck, and leaving the shimmering white lace of her dress uncluttered. If Charles hadn't been so torn between heartbreak and disgust then he would've been tripping over his own tongue at the sight of her. But as it was, Charles desperately wished that he could be anywhere but here. Anywhere that wasn't watching Erik plaster on a smile for this woman, a smile so perfectly reminiscent of the one that Erik had used on Charles on May Day.

 

Emma cast an amused but accepting glance around the room, "Erik, darling, I didn't know you were planning on renovating. If you'd told me I would've sent along the man who did all the work on my townhouse."

 

"We're organizing, not renovating," Alex snapped. The boy was slouched up against the wall beside his pile of books, guarding them all against Emma's presence. Charles had assumed this Emma was just another posh lady (or, more likely a particularly beautiful one) living in the capital, but Alex's reaction meant she was someone to be avoided. Of course, Erik ignored that completely in favor of the opportunity to have someone to flirt with.

 

Which Erik did with a vengeance.

 

He constantly invaded the woman's space, sliding up close and peering down at her from his advantageous height (which was not nearly the discrepancy that Erik had with Charles). He crossed the whole array of lascivious smiles, none of them the one that came naturally to Erik's face, but all of them striking nonetheless. Erik waived her over to one of the chairs that Charles had cleaned off just this morning and proceeded to flirt with her furiously under the guise of seeing how the latest spell was treating her. Of course, it didn't help matters much that every time Erik stepped behind her she tipped her head ever so slightly back, exposing the smooth path down the column of her throat and down to her breasts.

 

Charles wanted to escape, but he had never been anywhere else in the castle, and he felt uncomfortable with this being the first time that he browsed around the rooms. He moved to a tower of books in the far corner of the room where he could at least pretend to give Emma the privacy that was due to a client and pulled Alex along with him to help. He left Erik and Emma to their flirting, ignoring the roiling in his own stomach and made Alex read off book names to him while he wrote them down as the first step to an index.

 

As his transaction wore on, however, Erik started to get frustrated. Charles could see it in the tense line of his shoulders and how the occasional reply to her questions was blunt in its honesty rather than delicate. (Erik was naturally predisposed to be as aggressive as possible in his words, but Charles was well aware that it was something he kept pent up when he wanted to make a good impression.) By the time they were done Erik spent most of his time glowering either at Charles or at Logan, who was contentedly masquerading as nothing but a fire. Judging by the way Emma snapped back on her gloves, she was not pleased with the utter and obvious lack of attention. She left in a fury, barely waiting for Erik to do his duty and open the door for her.

 

The moment the door closed behind her Alex once again snapped, "And I hate that smug bitch, too."

 

A day was plenty of time to teach Charles that Erik didn't like being questioned, and the Wizard snapped back, "We need her, Alex. She's and her family are the most well respected Ladies in the kingdom. One good word from her gets us commissions that last for months, and when she's pissed then you and I get stuck eating nothing but buttered noodles!"

 

Alex was no wilting flower, and he stormed forward shouting, "Starving would be better than having her around!"

 

Charles moved to step between the two men, to interrupt their tirade before it got ugly, but he felt the sting of heat on his hands stopping him. Logan had stretched up and out of the fire to glance one of his own fingers against Charles' skin, not enough to burn, but enough to grab his attention. Logan gave Charles a minute shake of the head, telling him not to interfere.

 

"You can't hate everyone in the city for having money, Alex. That's a sure way to make sure you starve!"

 

"Oh that's rich," Alex snorted, "You lecturing anyone on the drawbacks of hate!"

 

"I'm allowed to hate people who want to kill me!"

 

Alex tossed up his hands, "And what do you think Emma wants done with me?"

 

"She doesn't want you dead, she wants me to marry her so she can have Witches for children!"

 

Alex just stared at Erik like he was an idiot before screaming, "And what happens to me when you do? If I'm not in your care I go back to the prison and I'm hanged!"

 

All the fight drained out of Erik and he wrapped Alex up into a hug. The boy struggled futilely for a few long moments, refusing the warmth of Erik's comfort, but soon enough he just collapsed against Erik's chest and mumbled, "I don't wanna go back."

 

Erik gripped the boy tighter and hissed, "No matter what, you will be protected. I've made arrangements with every last Witch and Wizard I know that if something happens to me then you'll be taken on as student by someone else. You'll be a Wizard Alex, I promise, and then that damn sentence won't matter anymore and you'll be free to live your life however you choose." The two men stood in silent comfort for a moment before Alex realized that they were hugging and slipped back in embarrassment.

 

The boy's cheeks burned bright red, and he awkwardly cleared his throat before he muttered, "Glad we got that cleared up," and ran up the stairs to hide in his room.

 

Erik just grinned at the boy's retreated back, then he looked over to Charles and the smile immediately faded into a grimace. Charles stuck out his chin and tried to pretend that he wasn't wondering what he could've done in the last hour that made the sight of him so distasteful. Erik gave both Charles and Logan a stiff nod, then swept up his coat and stormed out of the castle and out into the Wilds.

 

Charles sunk down on the ground next to the hearth and asked, "Logan, what just happened?"

 

The fire demon shrugged, "The kid's got talent with fire."

 

Charles stared at him foolishly expecting a more thorough explanation than that, but when none came Charles supposed it did make enough sense. Alex was predisposed to flashes of temper that burned hot but not terribly long. It made sense that he and Erik would communicate, not through discussion, but through the occasional bought of vicious yelling until Alex's temper got the better of him and he said what he really meant under all that bluster.

 

Charles drew his knees up to chest, "If I may ask, what was the other thing they were talking about. The… 'sentence'?"

 

Logan puffed out a long breath of his latest cigar (which he'd reached for the moment the door had closed behind Emma and he no longer pretended to be an ordinary fire). He stared at Charles, once again taking the measure of him before speaking, "Usually kids don't come into their magic until they're sixteen. They come in early for two reasons: sheer power, and trauma. Alex is both." Logan paused to take another long draw of his cigar, a surprisingly gentle action that let Charles have a moment to regroup.

 

"Whatever other magic Erik manages to teach him, the kid'll always be a fire starter. It's what he is, and he's one of the best that there's ever been. And coming from a fire demon that's saying something. About the time the kid should've been accidentally lighting the fire for dinner or making water boil, his mother got re-married. The bastard she picked liked to smack around Alex and his mom."

 

Charles's features settled into a hard look, "I assume Erik has taken care of the man?"

 

"That's the trouble, Alex took care of it himself." Charles started in surprise, and Logan continued. "One night the bastard turned his fists against Alex's baby brother, and the kid lost control. He set the bastard on fire, burned him alive. But the kid had no idea what in the hell was going on, no idea how to contain it, so the house burned down around them. The bastard and the mother both died in the blaze, but Alex had enough innate skill that he wrapped his arms around his baby brother and the both of them walked out of the wreckage unharmed."

 

"Please don't tell me that Alex got charged with murder for a moment of accidental magic."

 

Logan gave a sharp and frustrated puff, "Got it in one. Luckily for the kid, Erik was in town. He turned up at the courthouse and explained that it was an accident, there was nothing the kid could've done to prevent it. Then Erik swore on his honor and his magic that he'd see Alex trained properly so that nothing that this would happen again. And the judge accepted those terms."

 

"So if Erik was to turn Alex out…"

 

"The kid would be hanged for the murder of two people."

 

"And his brother?"

 

"Erik offered to keep the kid here, but both he and Alex decided that this was no place for him. Erik's got enemies aplenty, and all his enemies are Alex's enemies now, so Erik put the kid someplace safe."

 

Charles thought for a moment, "The black dial?"

 

Logan smirked that Charles had it figured it out so quickly, "Yup. Once a month Erik will bring the kid in and he'll spend the weekend with Alex. The kid is annoying as hell, but Alex gets happy when he's around, so there's hope for him."

 

There was a tone of finality to Logan, so Charles left the rest of his questions for another day, returning to the tidying. He went on steadily like that for another hour before Alex came back down the stairs looking sheepish. Charles just smiled, but held back his comments on what had happened earlier in the day, making the boy a sandwich instead. Alex blushed, but gave Charles a grin in reply. Alex put aside his studies and spent the rest of the afternoon helping Charles restore order to the main room of the house. Something seemed to have unblocked between them now that Charles had seen Alex and Erik fight it out, and suddenly the boy was telling Charles all about his studies (he had a habit of turning anything into an inferno when he was angry, so Erik was teaching him control), his family (the little brother was named Scott), and some of the adventures he'd had with Erik (Charles really didn't want to ask what the who of them were doing stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean in the first place).

 

By the time night rolled around and Charles fed them both again he was really quite happy, magically inflicted old age and Erik being off goodness knows where aside. The second half of the day was really quite beautiful, right up until the moment that Erik strode back into the castle, smelling of ale and with lipstick smudged along his mouth.

 

Erik didn't have the stumble of the well and truly drunk, but neither was he truly sober. He went straight to Alex and dropped a kiss into his hair, grinned back when the boy smirked at him like he was an idiot. The wizard then slid over to Charles and ran a hand along his shoulder, only to have Charles smack it away. It seemed every moment of happiness Charles eek-ed out of this castle and his terrible condition, Erik managed to come crashing in and rip it all away once again. Charles was not in the mood to be Erik's plaything while he dealt with his boredom. The Wizard tried to tease, but Charles rose stiffly from his wobbly chair and sighed, "If you gentlemen will excuse me, I am… tired."

 

Erik put his hand low on Charles's hip, "Come on-"

 

"No!" Charles snapped, surprising them all. He took a deep breath and continued, "I am old, Erik. I need my rest from the flights of such young men."

 

And to Charles's heartache, Erik let him go.

 

Erik stared at him until he settled peaceably into bed, then stormed up the stairs without so much as a goodnight. Alex looked up from his book and gave an awkward smile, "There's this girl in Oxford, near the Wilds. He, uh, he thinks she's _interesting_. Which for Erik is a pretty high compliment."

 

Charles gave Alex a sickly sort of smile in reply, then settled down into his bed and wrapped the covers up over his head. He had intended to stay awake until Alex went up to his own room, but the boy seemed determined to keep watch over Charles until he fell asleep. Eventually Charles gave in, sinking into slumber while Alex forced himself to keep trying that candle.

 

Hours later, when Alex had gone to bed (leaving his books still scattered about), Charles rolled over to see Logan still awake in the fireplace, puffing on another cigar. "Why're you still awake, kid?"

 

Charles wanted to snap something vicious about he deserved to be as irritable as he felt like, thank you very much. He’d been robbed of decades, forced from the moment when his life was just beginning to instead be shuffled off to the very end. He’d finally thought that perhaps it was _his_ turn to have something good, something with steel blue eyes and a smile that made his heart stop, only for that something to willingly flirt with everything on two legs, including Charles’s own sister. A sister, who according to Alex, was the light of Erik’s life, and who had been snogging not twenty minutes ago with a man who made Charles’s soul ache, a man who had gotten Charles cursed in the first place. Charles bit his tongue and said instead, "Logan, may I ask you a purely hypothetical question?"

 

The demon smirked, "Sure, kid."

 

"If, perhaps, I might want to have a consultation with the Witch. How would I go about arranging that?"

 

Logan puffed out a slow breath, like he was surprised by the question and trying hard not to show it. "She's gonna charge you for turning you back."

 

“As will you, if I’m not mistaken.”

 

“Whatever I charge you for the information, it’s gonna be nothing compared to what she’ll ask of you, kid.”

 

Charles thought about replying with something mocking, but lying to Logan felt wrong somehow. He sunk back into the pillows and murmured, "I don't particularly care. I can’t go on like this."


End file.
